A Promise to Keep
by Alice I
Summary: REVISED March 4th 2007 Oneshot: Missing scene from Take Out. Charlie shares a secret from his past hoping to help Don save his future. Rating for subject matter.


**Title:** A Promise to Keep  
**Author:** Alice I  
**Betas:** Becky S, Serialgal, dHALL  
**Genere:** Missing scene from 'Take Out'  
**Spoilers:** Structural Corruption, Take Out  
**Rating:** General

This was a portion of a message posted to the Numb3rs Crunching List in a discussion thread by Bonnie Chapman. I am dedicating this one-shot to her and her father. Her comment was referring to 'Take Out' not 'One Hour'. This story was written almost three weeks before 'One Hour' aired.

Bonnie Chapman wrote:  
"I didn't see all of the episode where Don had to see the therapist. I've had personal matters to deal with the last few weeks with my Dad being in and out of the hospital for cancer. But I will say this "Don going to the dark side" is really disappointing me. I had wanted and hoped for some serious Don/Charlie moments and I don't seem to be getting them. I mean you can't tell me Charlie never saw a Psychiatrist so I was hoping for some bonding and revelations to happen to make Don realize the importance of going and that it was okay."

**A Promise to Keep**

The interrogations were underway. Don, however, had no heart for them, so he left that duty to Megan and Colby. He glanced at David, who was filling out his report on the shooting at Bernando Infante's school, and sat heavily in his chair, rubbing his forehead.

Once they had arrived back at headquarters, Don had taken off his gear and headed up to the bullpen. He wanted to make sure that the suspects were being processed properly and that they couldn't slip through any kind of legal loophole. The problem was, he hadn't even started on the paperwork, and there was a mountain of it associated with a case like this.

He held one of the thick case files from the restaurant robberies in his hand -- the file on Infante. Every time he looked at the picture of the man's face, he saw the three Mexican children that he had rescued from the death squads…huddled, wailing over the body of their savior.

His hand automatically went to the hilt of his gun. As he fingered the grip uncertainly, it felt almost like a stranger to him. This piece of equipment that had been a part of his person for so long, a familiar form that should have felt like an extension of his own hand. He was disconcerted by how heavy and disembodied it felt. He removed the gun and placed it carefully in the top drawer of his desk. As he closed the drawer and walked away, his mind was a jumble of thoughts that made _him_ feel as heavy as the gun he had just stowed.

The break room was mercifully empty. He poured himself a cup of coffee and he stepped over to the window, looking out at the afternoon sunshine. The sun would be setting in a few hours, but Bernando Infante would not see it. He was dead.

Don's chin dropped to his chest, as he took a couple of deep breaths in an attempt to get his emotions under control. He didn't like, or really understand, what he was feeling. He only knew that he was at fault.

He tried to tell himself that he had done nothing wrong. He had been responsible; his actions, or lack of them, were by the book. He could state that as fact, and not a single person would argue with him. No one who was with the team, when they tried to avert the shooting at that school, would be able to disagree with that assertion. Only Don Eppes felt that Infante's death was on his shoulders and the weight of that unwarranted fatality bore down on him like an invisible force, crushing him.

He shook his head grimly to himself. The bottom line was that he had failed. He had failed to serve and protect. He'd had a clean shot at the death squad leader. He aimed his gun at the man who was about to open up on a playground full of children, but he didn't pull the trigger. He had hesitated, as every shooting over the last year assaulted his consciousness like a tidal wave of death. David had taken the shot and brought the man down, but by then it was too late. Too late for Bernando Infante; a man who had changed the course of his life and the lives of three children, a man who didn't deserve to die.

In Don's heart, he knew, without any doubt, that he should be held accountable for the man's death. If he hadn't hesitated, Bernando Infante would still be alive. As he had approached the body of the soldier turned teacher, he remembered looking at the gun in his hand…feeling as though it had betrayed him somehow.

How had it come to this? If he was second-guessing himself, then wasn't he a danger to his team? If he hadn't been so preoccupied with whether or not he could face killing another person, then a good man would still be alive. How could he live with the knowledge that he was responsible, by failing to act, for the death of an innocent man?

_'I'm no good to anyone anymore. I've become a liability; it should be me who paid that ultimate price, not Infante. I've outlived my usefulness.'_

That thought shocked him back to reality. The wish that he had been the one to die slammed into his heart with the force of a Mack truck, and he actually gasped at the thought. He put his hand out to the window to steady himself, as the ramifications of his thoughts hit him. His head was still bowed and the hand on the window balled up into a fist, as anger for even thinking something like that twisted in his gut.

He didn't see Charlie standing in the doorway watching him. He didn't see Megan step up to the young mathematician and exchange soft whispers. He didn't hear Charlie step all the way into the break room and close the door behind him, nor did he see Megan speaking to the agents in the bullpen warning them to stay away for a while.

Don raised his head and let out a deep sigh as he rubbed his hand down over his face just as Charlie stepped up silently behind him. Only then did he finally notice that he wasn't alone. When he caught the movement out of the corner of his eye, he turned just enough to see who it was.

"Hey."

"Are you all right?" Charlie kept his voice as neutral as he could, but his concern was apparent on his face.

Don moved away from the window and seemed to contemplate his answer for a moment.

"I don't know, Charlie. Two men are dead. There are three traumatized children who need to be interviewed by social services. But, we caught the bad guys."

Don's voice held a bitter note to it when he spoke next. "A high price was paid today... I guess the trick is to know when it's too high. I... I don't know who can determine that. When is the price for justice too much?"

Charlie stepped up to his brother and placed a hand on his shoulder. He could feel the tension in the older man's taut muscles. He was trembling like a rubber band poised to snap.

"Were you... did you...?"

"Shoot anyone? No, Charlie; David took down the shooter. But, not before he gunned down Infante."

Charlie frowned in confusion. He had assumed that Don was upset because he _had_ been forced to shoot someone else. Don's reaction was unsettling, and he noticed that the ever-present sidearm was conspicuously missing from his brother's holster. At that moment, Charlie knew what he should do. Still, he wavered; reluctant to dredge up painful memories of his own.

_'Painful or not, Don needs to know that he is not alone.'_

With that thought firmly in mind, Charlie turned to the coffee machine. Pouring himself a cup, he gathered his thoughts.

"Don, there's something..."

The way Charlie hesitated brought Don out of his own self-musings and sparked that 'big brother' instinct. He gave Charlie his full attention. "What is it?"

Charlie turned to face his brother and looked down for a second, gathering up his courage. "Do you remember Finn Montgomery?"

That made Don's eyebrows shoot up. The question caught him completely off guard.

"Yeah, Charlie I remember him." Don answered cautiously. "What's he got to do with..."

Charlie didn't let him finish his question. "You remember how adamant I was that he hadn't committed suicide?"

Don nodded as Charlie continued speaking.

"There is a reason for that… beyond what I told you. I didn't want to believe that he had killed himself because it brought back some pretty bad memories for me. I didn't help him when he came to me and you know that I felt culpable for his death because of my laxity. But, there's more to it than that."

Don was getting a funny, sick feeling in his gut. He stepped closer to Charlie, wanting to hear this, but dreading it at the same time.

"I didn't want to believe that he had committed suicide, because that would have hit too close to home. Because, I knew exactly what Finn was feeling…what he went through. I didn't want to believe that I hadn't recognized those feelings and responded to them. It had to be a murder, because suicide would have meant remembering feelings that I had long since put to rest…feelings that I didn't ever want to remember again."

Don felt his stomach tighten painfully as the words his brother spoke reverberated through his head. "Charlie, it... what are you saying? It almost sounds like you... like you tried to commit suicide yourself."

Charlie just looked at Don and waited. He waited for comprehension to dawn. He waited to see that look of horror that he knew would follow. And his brother didn't disappoint.

Charlie saw the disbelief in Don's eyes morph into fear and both emotions imbued his brother's voice as he shook his head incredulously.

"No."

"Yeah, twice actually."

Don felt weak in the knees as he stepped over to his younger brother, and took him by the shoulder to guide him to one of the chairs at the table, almost as though _he_ were the one about to faint. "What? How? When?"

Don couldn't seem to form more than single-word sentences, so Charlie, now committed to the tale, took over.

"Don, it was a long time ago. I was at Cambridge and things got a little out of control for me."

"My God, Charlie, why didn't you ever tell me about this?"

Charlie shook his head and half shrugged, as he held his hands up. "We were half a world apart geographically and even further apart in every other way. I mean, we weren't exactly talking to each other back then, were we?"

Don's eyes narrowed for a moment, and Charlie hurriedly continued before he could respond.

"I was in another country with no anchor, Don. That's all. See, as difficult as my life got at Princeton, Mom was there. But, things were different when I was at Cambridge. I think Susan Barry was the only thing that kept me sane. Nevertheless, even with her, I still felt lost, and the pressure was unbelievable."

"You had trouble with the courses at Cambridge?" Don looked genuinely confused. It had never occurred to him that Charlie would struggle with learning anything.

"That wasn't the problem, Don. There are things that I have had to deal with all of my life. I couldn't always control what was going on inside my mind, sometimes I still can't."

Charlie heaved a sigh as he tried to think of an analogy that would describe what he was trying to convey.

"Try to imagine a constant flow of data from everywhere bombarding your mind like a tidal wave…all of the time. Everything I saw, heard, felt; the numbers associated with it, flying through my brain and I couldn't turn it off. It was kind of like the roar of the surf, only it never stopped and there were times that it was deafening. It became like white noise or static - like when a radio is on with the volume turned all the way up, but not tuned into any particular station."

Don looked stunned by this information, and maybe even a little frightened by it.

"God, Charlie. Is it really like that all the time? I mean, I can't believe that you have suffered that kind of mental torture your whole life and I never knew anything about it. How is it that you aren't stark raving mad?"

Charlie smiled sadly. "It wasn't something I could really explain to you, Don. Besides, it isn't like that all of the time. There were many times when I didn't have this… number overload. However, when my stress level went up, the number static could become….well, unbearable. I didn't have trouble understanding what I was learning at Cambridge. You know me better than that. But, the sheer volumes of material were incredibly daunting."

Charlie took a deep breath before he continued.

"The first time I tried was shortly after I had met Susan. We weren't really together then and she didn't learn about it until months later. It was a passive attempt and all I did was manage to make myself dreadfully sick for about a week. Once I came clean with her about what had really happened, she was pretty upset and tried to get me to see a friend of hers. A psychologist named Martin Shire. I naturally declined. I told her that I was just being stupid; that I had gotten drunk and was homesick and when inebriated people feel homesick, they do stupid things. She let it go at that."

The need to move overwhelmed the agent, and Don suddenly shot out of his chair and began pacing. He would never have imagined that his genius brother, who put logic above almost everything else, would ever attempt something as illogical as suicide. Turning to face Charlie, he spoke in a tone that was harsher than he intended.

"And you tried to do this again?"

The knot in Don's stomach twisted uncomfortably because Charlie now looked less confident in his desire to share the rest of his story and Don knew that his reaction was to blame. Moving back to the table, he sighed and said, "I'm sorry Charlie, I didn't mean it to sound like that. Please, I'm listening."

He took a sip of his coffee and waited patiently for his brother to continue. As Don focused all of his energy on Charlie's story, he didn't notice that his own dark thoughts had stopped nagging at the edges of his subconscious.

"The second time was a little more serious. I wound up in the hospital for two days. At that point, Susan threatened to turn me into the Dean if I didn't go and see either her friend, or another psychologist. So, I had no real choice in the matter. If they knew that I had attempted suicide twice, I would probably have been sent home until such time as I was deemed fit enough to handle the course load and thesis work."

Don was not an unobservant man, and in the back of his mind he understood why Charlie had chosen _now_ to confess this part of his past. He could also see how much it took for him to admit to all of this. The fact that his little brother had tried to end his life, not once, but twice, and he had no idea that it had ever happened, struck a chord deep inside him. If Charlie had succeeded, then the relationship that he was beginning to cherish so much now, would never have developed. That thought sent a chill to Don's very core.

"So, you went to see this Dr. Shire?"

"Susan didn't give me much choice. It was extremely difficult at first. I mean, how could this guy have any idea what was happening to me? Nevertheless, I went and we talked. I hated it and felt bullied into doing it. He wanted to talk about the suicide attempt, but that was the last thing I wanted to talk about. I just didn't want to get into it, because there was no way that he could possibly 'get' what was happening to me. So, we talked about other things for a long time. The first month or so that I went to see him, we talked about me growing up, the tutors, mom and dad, you..."

"You talked about me?"

"Yeah, Don. He wanted to understand who I was. You are a big part of who I am; you always have been. When we grew apart, it had a big impact on me and my life, just like it did to you." Charlie stared up at Don with a look that was almost defying him to argue with that statement. However, the agent's face was thoughtful and focused inward, as though he were reaching back in his memory for his own feelings at that time in their lives.

"We talked about high school. That was one of the worst parts. I hated talking about high school... I sill do. We talked about Princeton, and when he finally started to really understand who I was, I found that I was beginning to understand too. I figured it was time to explain to him about the number static. To my astonishment, he not only understood, but also was _expecting_ me to reveal something of this nature. That was when we talked about….the suicide attempt."

Charlie stopped for a moment, as the old memories washed over him. They didn't hold sway over him like they had before, but it was still difficult to look at them and allow himself to feel them again. Don slid his forgotten coffee aside and reached out to take Charlie's hand. Both of them were surprised to feel the agent's hands trembling, but neither of them acknowledged it.

"I'm so sorry I wasn't there for you, Buddy. To think that I could have lost you and never even knew why? I don't really know how that makes me feel. When you told this doctor about... ...Did that help you?"

Don desperately wanted to know what exactly his brother had done when he tried to end his life. The rational side of his mind knew that it was irrelevant, but there was a macabre sense to wanting to know just how close he had come to losing his brother forever.

Charlie seemed to read his mind. "Those sessions were difficult emotionally and more often than not, they caused the number overload to get worse. I mentioned that the first attempt was passive. I was drunk and overdosed on pills, but not enough to kill me." He smiled ruefully. "Especially since I threw up and most of them never got into my system."

Don was staring intently at his brother, waiting, still holding his hand.

"The second time was _not_ passive." Charlie sighed and looked down. "It's something I am really ashamed of. What I put Susan through was wrong... it was selfish. I didn't expect her home for several hours and if she had not changed her appointment... well you and I wouldn't be having this conversation."

Don felt as if he were actually going to faint for a moment, but he blinked a few times and squeezed Charlie's hand. Charlie pulled his hand away from Don and carefully rolled up the sleeve of his shirt past the elbow. Then, he turned his arm over so that the crook of his elbow was visible and there it was; a fine white line that Don had never noticed before, nearly hidden by the hair growing on the side of his brother's arm…plain as day now that he knew where to look.

Don felt the blood drain from his face and he gripped the edges of the table to keep from falling over. He had been involved in enough suicides in his line of work, that he recognized what he was seeing. Charlie had cut his brachial artery and would have bled to death in a matter of minutes if Susan hadn't come home to find him. He had come perilously close to losing Charlie, and he had never known anything about it.

Don's tongue felt thick, and his throat dry. "Does... does Dad know?"

Charlie cocked his head to one side as if looking curiously at something. "Honestly? I don't know. If he does, he has never mentioned it. Mom knew; Susan called her. She was going to fly out, but I begged her not to. I was so ashamed of what I had done, I couldn't face her. That's one of the reasons I never wanted to talk about this with Dr. Shire. And until now, I never saw any reason to bring all of this up with you."

Don saw that coming, but for some reason, the defensive anger that he had felt every time someone had suggested he should _'talk to someone'_ simply wasn't there any more. He could clearly see how difficult it had been for Charlie to divulge this secret to him.

"So how did Dr. Shire help you? I mean obviously he did..."

"We talked about coping mechanisms for the number overload. That was when I started listening to hard rock while I worked. It was Dr. Shire's idea. Somehow, through the noise of the music, I found a way to focus the numbers in my head. That was the biggest problem with what I was experiencing. I had so much happening up here...",he said as he tapped his temple, "...that it was all I could do to keep from drowning in the flood of numbers. I had no way to focus it, to tune the static to a station."

"The music that I started listening to was louder than the static; it had complicated rhythms that actually helped me to calm the storm of data ricocheting around my brain. We talked about depression too. I learned to love Cambridge but I still missed home so much that it hurt sometimes. Susan helped a lot with that, but it was still there. I missed Pasadena. I missed Mom and Dad and..."

"You missed me?"

"I regretted the rift that had grown between us and yes, Don, I missed you. I felt like I had lost my big brother and no matter how loud I turned the music up, nothing could drown out that feeling of despair; the feeling that I had driven you away because there was something fundamentally wrong with me."

Charlie's voice had become so sad that it made it even harder for Don to hear those words. A feeling of deep regret hammered at him. Was _he_ one of the major reasons that his brother had attempted to end his life? Suddenly, all of the guilt that he had been feeling earlier returned with a vengeance, constricting his heart, and making him lose his breath.

"Oh, God, Charlie. I'm... I'm so sorry. You didn't drive me away, Buddy. I... there is so much that I have never told you and... "

"Don, stop!" Charlie cut him off, slamming his hand down on the table.

"My intention here is not to make you feel badly about past history. I was twenty-one years old, Don! I was an adult, and responsible for my own actions. What I did was not about you; it was about me. I was depressed - I was lonely - I was overwhelmed by the pressures of my thesis work and the numbers in my head. I didn't know how to compartmentalize all of it. _That_ is what Dr. Shire helped me to do."

Leaning back in his chair, Charlie looked intently into Don's face and continued in a more composed voice. "The whole point of this confession was to show you that you're not alone. Don, I'm worried about you. You've begun to close down on me. Not just on me. This job is beginning to eat you alive. You need to talk to someone; you need to find your own coping mechanisms, because what you have been doing on your own…..it just isn't working. Maybe it did at some point but it isn't anymore."

Charlie paused expecting Don to interrupt, but he didn't.

"Don, I know you don't want to go talk to this psychologist, but he can help you if you let him. If you don't, then sooner or later you'll find yourself where I was and you won't use a razor blade, you'll use your gun, and I'll lose my brother."

Don sat back, stunned. Charlie actually thought that he would kill himself? The realization of that fear stung like a slap in the face, but how far off was it really? Hadn't he allowed that stray thought to cross his mind only a short while ago? Yes, he had pushed it aside as ridiculous, but that didn't change the fact that it had been there, lurking in the back of his mind.

Charlie sat and watched the emotions play across his brother's face. He had hit a chord, and it frightened him a little. Had his older brother actually thought about this already?

"Charlie, I'm glad you told me about this. I am so sorry that you felt that way with no family around to talk to. I want to talk to you too... about why I... why we drifted so far apart, but I..." Don stopped and rubbed at his face. "You're right; I need to talk to someone. I have been sinking hard and fast and after what I did today... what I didn't do... I need to sort out what is happening first, but we _will_ talk, Buddy. I promise you that. Maybe we can take a weekend vacation up to the mountains some time, just the two of us; no work, no cases, no numbers - just brothers."

The tension and fear that had been growing in Charlie's stomach dissipated like smoke in the wind, and he smiled warmly. "I'd like that."

Don looked at his watch; then back at Charlie. "I'm okay, Buddy. I promise, but I have a few things that I need to do now."

Charlie stood up from the table and gave his brother a relieved smile.

"See you for dinner, then?"

"Count on it, Buddy."

After Charlie left, the first thing Don did was to look up the FTD florist on-line to see if they delivered in the UK and was delighted when he found out that they did. It took twenty minutes to track down an address for Susan Barry; when he had it, he ordered a huge assortment bouquet with a note that simply said 'Thank you for looking out for my brother, Don Eppes'.

He smiled in satisfaction as he hung up the phone, then stood for a moment, taking in the activity in the office, the click of keyboards, the soft shuffle of papers, the heads bent in concentration. Straightening, he locked his desk and stepped away, his stride full of purpose. If he left now, he could get to Dr. Bradford's office well before he closed for the day. He had a promise to keep and he wouldn't let his brother, or himself, down again.


End file.
